Isabella POV:
The bids escalated, a back-and-forth volley of pride and pain. The air in the ballroom crackled with tension. Finally, Marco lowered his paddle, a smug, satisfied smirk playing on his lips. He had pushed me to my limit, and he knew it.
"Sold!" the auctioneer cried. "To Miss Moretti for five million dollars!"
A bitter, fleeting sense of triumph washed over me. I had won. But it felt like a loss.
I walked to the payment table, my head held high, and presented my private account card, the one linked directly to the Moretti family trust.
The clerk swiped it. Once. Twice.
"I'm sorry, Miss Moretti," she said, her voice a hushed, embarrassed whisper. "The card has been declined. The account has been frozen."
Ice flooded my veins. Marco. He had anticipated this. He had cut off my access to my own family's fortune.
Luca stepped forward, his face grim. "Allow me," he said, sliding his own card across the table.
The clerk swiped it. "Declined," she murmured, looking even more mortified. "All accounts associated with the Ricci and Moretti families appear to be locked for this transaction."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Laughter, thinly veiled and cruel. I was standing there, the winner of a five-million-dollar diamond, unable to pay. A princess without a penny to her name.
Then, Marco's voice, smooth and condescending, cut through the noise.
"Perhaps I can be of assistance."
He strode to the table, tapped his personal signet ring against the payment console, and the transaction was instantly approved. He had locked me out, only to display his absolute control.
The velvet box containing the Star of Sicily was handed to him. For a heart-stopping moment, I thought he might give it to me, a twisted peace offering.
He walked past me, straight to Angelia. He knelt before her, opened the box, and presented the diamond like a holy relic.
"For you, Angie," he said, his voice filled with a devotion that shattered the last fragments of my heart. "Always."
The ballroom erupted in applause. The public humiliation was complete. I was a spectacle, a tragic sideshow in their perfect love story.
Luca's voice was a low growl in my ear. "He planned this, Bella. He wanted to break you in front of everyone."
Marco's voice, cold and sharp, cut in. "Stay out of this, Luca. What happens with Isabella is my business." He turned to me, his eyes devoid of any warmth. "This is what happens when you defy me."
A laugh escaped my lips. It was a raw, mirthless sound that turned heads. A sound of absolute, soul-crushing despair.
I didn't say a word. I just turned and ran. I fled the ballroom, the laughter and whispers chasing me like a pack of wolves.
I locked myself in my room, the darkness a welcome shroud. Shaking, I activated the listening device I'd hidden in Marco's study months ago. I needed to hear, to understand the depths of his cruelty.
I heard the voices of his soldiers, Enzo and Jax.
"She looked completely broken," Enzo said, a note of satisfaction in his voice. "Did you see her face?"
"Serves her right," Jax replied. "Acting like she's too good for him."
Then Marco's voice, cold and possessive, filled the speaker. "She is mine. She's just forgotten her place. I'll handle her."
I saw him on the security feed. He was picking up a small, velvet box from his desk—a cheap imitation of the diamond necklace he had just given Angelia. A pathetic consolation prize.
The words echoed in my mind. *She is mine.*
He didn't love me. He didn't even respect me. He saw me as a possession, an object to be controlled and punished.
I switched off the monitor. I couldn't watch anymore. I couldn't listen to the casual cruelty of the men I had once considered family.
I didn't see the flicker of unease on Luca's face as Marco claimed me. I didn't hear the way his heart broke for me in the echoing silence of the ballroom.
All I knew was the crushing weight of my own despair, and the sound of Marco's footsteps approaching my door. He was coming to "handle" me.
